Falcon Group, a provider of inventory management solutions, has hired former Citi global trade head John Ahearn as its Americas CEO and group vice-chairman.

In his newly created New York-based role, Ahearn will be responsible for leading the group’s expansion into the Americas and providing “strong guidance” to its global growth strategy, says a release issued by Falcon.

GTR understands that Ahearn will be responsible for building a US team to deliver Falcon’s expansion plans with recruitment beginning shortly.

Earlier this year, GTR reported that Ahearn had made the decision to retire from his position of Citi’s chairman of trade after 16 years at the bank. He was previously global head of trade and treasury solutions (TTS). In February, the bank promoted Ebru Pakcan to take up the role and has since made several new hires to the TTS team across regions.

Ahearn has also worked in JP Morgan’s trade division, at Bank of New York, where he was responsible for business development and trade finance, as well as at ABN Amro, where he led the North American trade and financial institutions trade sales teams.

Kamel Alzarka, Falcon Group chairman and founder says that Ahearn will be “instrumental” in establishing Falcon in the Americas, as well as “navigating us through our global expansion strategy and consolidating Falcon into the market taking us to the next level”.

The news follows Falcon naming three senior managers in Asia and the Middle East. Farrukh Siddiqui and Sonam Kapadia were brought in as managing directors and Farooq Siddiqi was hired as CEO of Southeast Asia.